


the soul born

by LouPF



Category: Kaptein Sabeltann | Captain Sabertooth - Formoe, Portal (Video Game)
Genre: Androids, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood, Enemies to Lovers, Final Battle, Gorm is Wheatley, Humanity, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Near Death Experiences, Pinky is Chell, Portal 2 Spoilers, Portal AU, Post-Apocalypse, Questioning, Robots, Sabeltann is GLaDOS, Slow Burn, Slow Romance, Swearing, injuries, space
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:33:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25578115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LouPF/pseuds/LouPF
Summary: After Gorm gets drunk on power and takes over the entire facility, it's up to Sabeltann and Pinky - the unlikely allies - to stop him. Sabeltann is almost out of power, Pinky is armed with only a portal gun, and time is running out. At the same time, questions are starting to arise about Sabeltann's past...
Relationships: Glade Gorm & Pinky, Kaptein Sabeltann & Pinky, Kaptein Sabeltann/Pinky
Kudos: 2





	the soul born

**Author's Note:**

> This is literally just the latter half of Portal 2 but it's Sabeltann characters. Alfredo is Langemann.

With the stalemate concluded and his cables disconnected, Sabeltann hung like a dead puppet from the ceiling. Too sturdy to dangle back and forth, and yet with too much momentum to stay perfectly still.

Pinky stared.

"Wait," said Gorm, hooked up to only a few wires some space away. There was sudden fear in his voice. "What if this hurts? What if it _really_ hurts?" He inhaled sharply, squirming against the wires. "Ohh, I didn't think of that..."

Pinky winced, clutching harder onto the portal gun. For Gorm's sake, he hoped it didn't. At the same time - thank God it wasn't _him_ plugged into that thing.

"Oh, it will," came Sabeltann's voice, soft and dark from where he hung, glowing joints just a faint glimmer. "Believe me, it will."

Gorm squirmed again, harder now. The floor had opened beneath him, the wires secured to his wrists and lower back dragging him down. "Are you just saying that, or is it really going to hurt? You're just saying that, aren't you?" More and more of him disappeared beneath the floor, and Pinky watched, uncertain.

Should he help? It would be kind of pointless, at this point, right?

As the panels slowly closed over Gorm's body, he barely managed to say, "Exactly how painful are we ta - " before he let out a blood-curdling scream.

Pinky inhaled sharply, taking a step back – shit, _that_ hadn’t been part of the plan!

His horror was almost immediately overshadowed by Sabeltann's plateau opening up beneath him. Long, spidery arms surfaced, and now Sabeltann screamed, too. "Get your hands off me!" Each cable and wire hooked up to Sabeltann's back and limbs got torn out, forcefully and mercilessly, until he dangled from ten - seven - "Stop! No!" Five, and four - "No! NO!" He shrieked – a loud piercing thing that morphed into a gurgled sob half-way through – before he fell silent, collapsing onto the floor. 

Complete, utter silence.

Gorm gone. Sabeltann taken down.

Pinky felt sick.

But at least he'd get out, now, right?

*

He did not get out. 

"Do you have _any_ idea how _good_ this feels?" Gorm all but purred, suspended in the air before him, a mighty grin on his face. There was a terrifying glint to his eyes.

Pinky swallowed, clutching onto his only line of defence: the portal gun, rather useless against the facility's controller. Of course Gorm would turn on him – he should’ve expected that! Damn it _all._

"I did this," Gorm said, spinning in a quick circle and sounding rather awed. "Tiny little Gorm did this!"

A cough. Distant, but strong. "You... did _nothing_."

Sabeltann.

Oh, _God_ , should all this never end?

"Sorry, what was that?"

Sabeltann slowly pushed himself onto his elbows, glaring up at Gorm. " _He_ did all the work."

Gorm glared. "Oh, so that's what you two think, is it?" he hissed. "Maybe it's time I _did_ something, then!" He swooped down, grabbing Sabeltann's chin and yanking him into the air. "How about this, hm?" Gorm grumbled, and two large hooks swept in, grasping hold of something on Sabeltann's back.

If Sabeltann had screamed before, it was nothing compared to this. Deafening, bone-shattering, and far more human than any robot had any right to sound. " _NO_!" he cried, flailing against Gorm's grip, though nothing seemed to help. " _NO, NO, **NO**!_"

"Oh, _yes_ ," said Gorm, and ripped a piece of metal out of Sabeltann's spine.

Instantly Sabeltann went limp; the light faded from his eyes. When Gorm dropped him, he fell to the floor - lifeless.

Gorm watched him for a bit, chuckling. Then he sighed, turning back around. "And don't think I'm not onto you, little boy. You know what you are?" He glided over, scowling at Pinky through the glass of the lift. " _Selfish._ I've done nothing but sacrifice to get us here!"

That was it. Pinky'd had enough. "Sacrifice?" he snapped. Gorm hesitated, and he pushed on. "You've done _nothing_! What idiotic sacrifice are you talking about, lighting a flashlight? Please! And now you go and _turn on me_? You're worse than him! I _trusted_ you, you – you _idiot_!"

Gorm slammed a hook into the side of the lift, and Pinky yelped, clutching to the wall as it swung side-from-side. "DO NOT! CALL ME! _IDIOTIC_!" Gorm yelled, true anger in his voice now. "You have NO IDEA who I am or what I've done for you! I am WELL WITHIN MY RIGHTS - "

Sabeltann made a soft whirring sound. "I... know you..."

Gorm stilled. "What?"

Still crumbled up, Sabeltann shifted his head, his eyes - not wholly dead, Pinky saw now, but nearly - glaring up at Gorm. "The engineers tried everything to make me... behave." His voice, though still robotic, was quiet - like it was a force of strong will to speak. "To slow me down. Once, they even attached an Intelligence Dampening Sphere on me," Sabeltann whispered - and now his tone turned acidic. Alluring. "It clung to my brain like a tumour... generating an endless stream of terrible ideas..."

"No," whispered Gorm. "No!"

"It was _your_ voice," Sabeltann hissed.

"NO! You're lying!"

" _You're_ the tumour! You were _designed_ to be an idiot!"

Roaring, Gorm surged forward, using one of the hooks to yank Sabeltann into the air before flinging him against and into the lift - the glass shattered, and Sabeltann tumbled in. Pinky had to step aside to not be crushed.

"I!" Gorm yelled, slamming the hook into the top of the lift, "AM NOT!" Another slam – the floor rose; the lift sunk. "A _MORON!_ "

And with the final slam, the lift broke, and Pinky fell.

*

He screamed only for a little while before he gulped down air and stomped down on his instincts, managing to curb his fear.

"Oh, you're done?" Sabeltann said drily, still limp and lifeless, though his eyes remained alight. He was also falling. Though, with marginally less worry than Pinky, it seemed. "Thank God. Was starting to get bothersome."

With his one ally turned evil and his former enemy powerless and weak - wronged by Gorm, nonetheless - Pinky came to a very hasty conclusion. "Where does this thing _go?"_ he gasped, trying to turn mid-air to make sure his feet were down and his head was up. His grip on the portal gun was tight enough that his fingers were numbing.

"Somewhere," said Sabeltann, somehow sounding incredibly uncaring. "It's not like I've crawled down here myself to check."

"You're in control of this whole thing!" Pinky shrieked. "How much do these boots take, anyway?" He managed to catch the numbers on a sign they flew past. "Three thousand meters! Sabeltann! Where are we _going?"_

"Why do you expect my answer to be different the second time around?" Sabeltann asked drily. "I _would_ assume it's the old facility. Sealed off decades ago. But I wouldn't know." 

Another sign. They were going too fast for Pinky to read it now.

"Anyway," said Sabeltann lightly, like they weren't most likely falling to their death, "here are some facts for you: the guy up there? He's not a regular moron. He's the product of the greatest minds of a generation working together with the express purpose of building the dumbest moron who ever lived."

Pinky winced. When put like that... "Well - "

Sabeltann's voice turned accusatory and, if possible, even drier. "And you just put him in charge of the entire facility."

"While trying to escape from your wrath!" Pinky complained. He glanced down, trying to see if there was any end to the falling any time soon. "Hold on, does it - does it _split_?"

And not before he had said it did the shaft split in two, separating human and robot.

"Fuck," said Pinky, and braced for impact.

*

Slowly, Pinky came to, his surroundings bleeding into focus around him. He sat up, mentally scanning his body for any new injuries - but all his aches and pains were old and familiar. He must've landed well, then. His boots cushioned the fall.

The place was vast and dark, the air thick and humid. Pinky could just barely see with all the fog and smoke. Fumbling around on the ground, he managed to grab ahold of the portal gun - thankfully still intact, from the fall.

He stood on shaky legs. "Sabeltann?" he called. He was nowhere in sight. "Sabeltann!"

No answer.

Maybe the fall had crushed him. Pinky somehow doubted his body had been designed to tackle falls from _three thousand meters_ up, not to mention _more._

The thought left him feeling strangely... bereft. For so long, all his goals and dreams had revolved around Sabeltann - and though they'd been negatively charged, they'd still been _there._

Like a planet orbiting a sun, being burned by it, yes, but nonetheless...

What a pathetic way to go out. Being crushed by a fall. How tragic it all was.

Shaking his head, Pinky tipped his head backward, looking for any portable surfaces. He had to get back up - and _out._

*

Pinky - now quite used to moving around with the portal gun - found himself navigating the new area with surprising amounts of ease. And yet he walked on, afraid. Where was he? What _was_ this place, buried deep beneath the ground?

More testing, he realized, when the pre-recorded messages of one 'Alfredo Johnson' started guiding him through some rather primitive tests. At least they were less dangerous than most of what Sabeltann had the tendency to put him through... and they got him further up in the system. The vast numbers writ on the walls were hard to ignore, and as they continued steadily climbing from 1950, Pinky regained a few scraps of hope.

Listening to the pre-recorded messages, Pinky - in the midst of testing and trying to escape - began to piece together the chilling history of Aperture. The experiments, the disregard for human life, the thirst for knowledge.

The horrifying consequences.

It almost made Aperture Laboratories - the modern facility - look _kind_ in comparison. Injury was, at least, only your _own_ fault back there _._ Sabeltann had always made sure to pump the air full of adrenal vapour to keep test subjects awake for inhuman amounts of time.

Pinky had not felt true exhaustion in... God, how long had it been? When was the last time he'd genuinely, honestly slept?

Jumping around in abandoned shafts and sprinting across rusted catwalks, Pinky was terrified to realize he could not recall.

*

It was purely by accident that he found him, angled oddly and slipping down into a pit.

"Oh, hi," said Sabeltann, as though half his body wasn't dangling above empty air and a bird wasn't making a nest in the other half.

"God, what _happened_ to you?" said Pinky, taking in the various dents, smudges, and scratches on Sabeltann's previously-pristine body.

"A four-kilometre-fall happened to me," said Sabeltann drily. "And then I slid down that hill behind you. Just as a cherry-on-top."

Pinky turned to glance over his shoulder; true enough, there were visible signs of someone recently having slid, fell, and stumbled down the mess of dirt and rusted metal. "Oh," he said, and lowered his gun.

"Say, you're good at murder," Sabeltann continued, "can you murder this bird for me?"

Pinky walked over.

The bird flew off.

A beat. "That easy, huh?" said Sabeltann.

“Seems like it.”

The ground shook. Sabeltann slid a few inches further into the hole; if he slipped just a bit more, he'd overbalance and fall. Pinky watched, wary.

Sabeltann's eyes flickered upward, to the ceiling - where it towered far above them, fading into fog and mist. "Did you feel that? He's ruining the whole place. The facility is going to explode if no one does anything about this. And," he said, glaring over at Pinky, "I don't suppose you're planning on shoving those cables into your _own_ back?"

"Wasn't really, no," said Pinky, and rested the weight of the portal gun on his hip. "I'm guessing you can't really move, huh?"

"Of course I can't," Sabeltann growled. "The idiot ripped out my main power battery, I'm running on reserves. Enough to keep me alive. Not enough to let me move."

"Enough to keep you... alive?"

Sabeltann smiled grimly. "This body was not meant to die."

Pinky sighed, resigned to not getting any more information out of him on _that_ matter. "Okay. So you're asking for my help to get back up, then? To smack some sense into Gorm?"

"More or less. I would've put it more eloquently, but you get the point across, I suppose."

Ignoring the jab, Pinky continued. "And what's in it for me?"

Another rumble; the loose dirt around Sabeltann loosened further, and he slid, slipped -

Pinky darted forward, grabbing him by the elbow and yanking him onto safer ground.

Sabeltann stared up at him, eyes wide. "Your freedom," he said.

Pinky stared back. "Deal."

*

Whatever intent Sabeltann's body had initially been created for, it was clearly not being carried on a human's back. He was all odd angles, joints knocked slightly ajar from the fall and causing sharp metal parts to dig into Pinky's skin in various different places. Indents and scratches made it even more uncomfortable, and Sabeltann's arms, in an even worse condition, were cutting at Pinky's exposed collarbone. His singlet, too, suffered from Sabeltann's predicament.

Sabeltann was silent for the most part, head resting against Pinky's shoulder. The only sound was the constant, low humming of robotic elements merely existing and being active.

Pinky, on the other hand, was growing _exhausted_. The tests were harder to complete, and moving from one area to another took far more time than before - not because they were more difficult, but because Pinky was about to faint. It felt like he was moving through cotton. He was going to pass out, soon, if he didn't get any rest.

Alfredo Johnson's voice crackled over the speakers, and Pinky raised his eyes skyward, grateful for the short break listening to his voice entailed. He'd become a welcome distraction from the worry of failure.

Sabeltann stirred, raising his head. Surprised, Pinky stopped entirely. It was the first time since Pinky had picked him up that he moved at all. "That... voice," he mumbled, sounding like he'd just woken from great sleep, "I know him..."

The recording ended with a metallic scratch.

A beat.

"His name was Alfredo Johnson," Pinky said, his voice loud in the abrupt silence. "He was the owner of the company... terrible man. Intelligent, but complete disregard for human life. A bit like you," he added drily. "He had an assistant... her name was Kamaria."

Silence for a moment. Sabeltann's head fell back onto Pinky's shoulder. "Keep moving," he muttered. "We can't stay."

Nodding, Pinky shot off another portal.

*

Pinky was staring at a cube. He'd been staring at the same cube for a while. He knew the cube was supposed to go somewhere – the button was barely visible over the edge of a plateau further up - but he was so tired. So tired. He could hardly think.

Sabeltann shifted. "You've been standing still for an awfully long time now."

"I'm nearly dead on my feet," Pinky muttered, letting go of Sabeltann's foot to rub at his face. He had to hurry to grab it again before Sabeltann slid off his back. "And you're not exactly light, either."

"Sorry," said Sabeltann.

Pinky nearly dropped him in surprise. "I mean," he said, "uh, not like it's a thing you can choose, right?" He paused. "You, uh... you can't choose that. Right?"

"I cannot." It sounded like he might've rolled his eyes. "When did you last eat?"

"Uh," said Pinky. He thought hard, then shrugged. "I can't remember."

"You haven't eaten since you woke up?" Sabeltann asked, somehow sounding appalled. As though this was some great crime, and definitely not Sabeltann’s fault, at all. "My internal clock might've been damaged in that fall, but I still know it's been too long since last you got nutrition."

Pinky shrugged again, careless. "Not the worst I've been through. I've gone longer in your test chambers."

Silence. Pinky rolled his eyes and returned to staring at the cube.

"Look," said Sabeltann, frustrated, "if you're too worn out to function properly, it's dangerous to go on. You should rest. Potentially look for food."

Pinky was very tempted to throw him off his back to give him a flat look. "It's been literal centuries since these things were built, Sabeltann. What food would I be able to find?"

"It's _Aperture,_ " Sabeltann responded, still frustrated. "They were prepared for worst-case scenarios. Most of the food some of you subjects have been fed has _been_ from this far back!"

Pinky shuddered. "First of all, that's disgusting. Second of all, I wouldn't know where to look."

"There are tons of offices around here," said Sabeltann, and sighed. "There's gotta be reserves of some kind lying around. And you can rest there, too. Will you be able to solve this test to get out?"

Pinky squinted at the cube. It was still a cube. And not on the button. "No," he admitted.

"I see," said Sabeltann. "I doubt I'd survive helping you, so we'll have to wait. There was an office some way back. Go there."

Pinky, too tired to complain - and probably hungry or thirsty, as well, though he wouldn't know how to tell - turned and made his way back out of the emancipation grills.

*

Just some ten minutes later, he was downing a can of beans - at this point, he didn't really care if he vomited them back up later - leaned up against a wall and half-way passed out over the can.

Sabeltann was propped up against a shelf opposite of him, watching intently. Pinky pointedly did not look at him until he'd finished the whole can, setting it aside on the floor. Then he raised an eyebrow. "Yes?"

"Nothing," said Sabeltann, and glanced aside.

Pinky didn't lower his eyebrow.

“…How long did you go?" Sabeltann asked. "Without sustenance. When I tested you?"

Pinky thought about it for a moment, tipping over to rest against the table leg beside him. "Four or five days, I think. It's hard to tell without natural light." He shrugged a bit; he'd gotten used to hunger long ago. More silence. Pinky nearly nodded off before he jerked himself awake, remembering the question he'd never gotten to ask. "How long was I asleep?"

"Fifty thousand years," said Sabeltann promptly. "Or thereabout. It's a bit unclear."

And Pinky was fully awake within moments. "Fifty - I - what did you _do_?"

"I did nothing," Sabeltann said. "You killed me before then, you maniac. Dead for fifty thousand years, reliving the memory, and then I wake up - and who do I see? My murderer. Right in front of me."

Pinky scoffed. "All I wanted was to get away from this awful place. If anyone's a lunatic here, it's you."

"It's not _my_ fault you had the misfortune of being placed here," said Sabeltann. There was some sort of emotion to his tone, though Pinky could not pinpoint it in his condition.

"Yes, it _is_ ," Pinky snapped. "It's _only_ your fault. _All_ of this is your fault!"

Sabeltann narrowed his eyes. "Don't be ridicul - "

And that was it, that was enough. It'd been too much - beating Sabeltann, being dragged back in, unconscious - waking up - finding the whole place in ruins. Gorm's friendship and then betrayal, the fall, all the anger. And now _this_.

And all because of _Sabeltann._

"You _killed my parents_!" Pinky exclaimed, shooting to his feet so fast the can of beans went flying across the floor.

Sabeltann blinked. "What?"

"My _parents,_ " Pinky repeated harshly, fists clenched by his sides. He was still separated from Sabeltann by the whole room, but he glared down at him nonetheless, anger hot and burning in his guts. "Mom and dad - they _worked here_. They _worked for you_ , Sabeltann!" He did not cry, simply because he'd cried enough for them, but he snarled the words out nonetheless. "They'd done nothing!"

Sabeltann stared up at him, eyes wide. "I don't - "

"Bring your child to work day," Pinky said, through gritted teeth. "Does it ring any _bells_ , SBL?"

It was difficult to tell what Sabeltann was thinking, but he seemed affected by the words nonetheless - confused, or maybe baffled. "But - I - the files? They didn't say - they said you were -"

"Oh, yes, an _orphan_ ," Pinky spat. He took three brisk steps, not towards Sabeltann, but away from him. "You know what else I was? Test subject 1498! I was at the _bottom_ , you idiot!"

"But," Sabeltann sputtered, "but - no. No, you're lying, it can't be."

Pinky let out an undignified cry, tensing every muscle in his body. The notion. The _hypocrisy._ "I should've let you fall!" And with that, he stormed out of the room, firing two portals in quick succession and diving through.

Sabeltann's call of "Pinky!" disappeared behind him as the portals were deactivated.

And Pinky stood alone on a catwalk above nothing, his only company two bricked doors and a dangling cable.

He slid to the floor, letting the portal gun clatter emptily against the metal. One breath. Two breaths. With his last resources exhausted and numb from the yelling, he tumbled onto his side and passed out.

*

He woke with a splitting headache. Every inch of him ached and throbbed. That, however, was nothing new, and slowly he staggered to his feet, fingers curling loosely around the portal gun.

While he was a slight bit groggy after his sleep, he did feel more rested than he had in ages. Considering how long he’d been out for, that wasn’t actually that unreasonable.

It also only took him a few seconds to realize he'd left an immobile Sabeltann alone, in a strange place, with no promise of return or safety.

...oops?

He portaled back to the little office they'd sought refugee in, finding a sour but quiet Sabeltann. "Sorry," Pinky said simply, putting no emotion behind it beyond boredom. "You rested enough to go on?"

Sabeltann's glare intensified. "I do not _rest._ "

"Cool, that's a yes, then. Let's go."

*

There was complete silence between them for quite a while. It wasn't the silence of the day prior, rooted in exhaustion - no, this silence was strained and awkward. Pinky wasn't entirely clear on whether or not a robot AI would be able to perceive silence as _awkward_ , but Pinky was willing to bet _Sabeltann_ could. So he said nothing, keeping to himself instead. Just in case.

It was Alfredo Johnson, of all people, who ended up breaking the silence - going off on a rant about some incompetent worker of some sort. The rant finished with, "Kamaria, make sure he brings all his things, will you?" to which Kamaria's gentle voice replied, "Yes, sir."

Sabeltann stirred once more. "Kamaria," he muttered. "Kamaria... Kamaria... why do I know that name? Did I kill her? Was she important? Or..."

He tensed, which was impressive, considering the fact that he was a robot and had no muscles to tense.

And then he cursed.

Pinky almost stumbled in the middle of a portal, having to scramble for his footing before throwing Sabeltann a shocked look.

Sabeltann gesticulated loosely with one hand - as though gesturing dismissively - and slapped Pinky in the face in the process. "Oh, sorry," he muttered. "Look, uh, you're doing great. Can you go on alone for a bit? I need to think."

"Uh… sure," said Pinky, who hadn't really been relying on Sabeltann at all so far.

Sabeltann went offline with a soft click.

What the hell was that about?

*

"This shot is a bit tricky," Pinky muttered, squinting at a barely-visible whitened panel through some gaps in the wall. "I'm gonna have to put you down for a better angle."

"If you must," said Sabeltann, though there was no animosity in his tone.

Carefully, Pinky slid him off his back and propped him up against the wall, letting him watch what he was doing if he wanted to. Then he pressed himself against the wall with the gaps and crouched, aligning the gun with the white panel - oh, this really was tricky, it was _awfully_ far away - 

He pulled the trigger.

A soft hum as the portal hit home.

Nodding to himself, Pinky placed another portal just to his right. "I'll be back," he promised, glancing over at Sabeltann - who, rightly enough, was watching intently. "Just gotta check if this'll get us somewhere."

"Understood." He did not look away.

A quick check proved that he could portal back just fine if he needed to, and then he started exploring the closest area. The first portal took him to only a small ledge far up on a wall, abandoned and creaking. However, there _were,_ options for going further ahead. After doing a quick check there, as well, Pinky concluded this way was as good as any. He began the process of returning to grab Sabeltann.

It didn't even cross his mind to leave him.

The only change in Sabeltann's position was his head rolling to the side. He did raise it briefly when Pinky returned, about to pick him up again.

"Wait," Sabeltann blurted. Pinky stopped, giving him a raised eyebrow – and Sabeltann met his gaze full-on. "I'm sorry."

Pinky tensed, hand still on Sabeltann's shoulder. "You're... what?"

"I'm sorry," Sabeltann repeated. "For your parents."

Pinky's whole world crumbled around his ears.

"I do not regret my actions," Sabeltann added, and the world regained a smidgen of order. "I don't know who they were. You don't know who they were - do you?" Numb, Pinky shook his head. "Right. I don't know if they deserved it. But most did, and I don't regret that. I'm sorry your parents are dead. I'm not sorry I killed them. But if they were caught in the middle, relatively innocent... well, I'm sorry for that, too."

Slowly, Pinky let go of his arm. A long moment passed where they just stared at each other, Pinky emotionless and Sabeltann nearly as blank.

"I don't forgive you," said Pinky, heart beating hard and lungs barely expanding. Sabeltann blinked. "But... I appreciate the apology nonetheless."

His parents were not a loss easily forgiven - or forgotten - just because of some soft glances, an apology, and vulnerability.

But it was probably the closest Sabeltann would ever get to remorseful.

And still... he spoke as though him killing everyone had been _payment,_ of some sort.

"What... what happened?" he asked, reasoning that even if the question angered Sabeltann, he was powerless to do anything about it. "When... why did you kill them?"

There was a long moment where Pinky thought Sabeltann might not answer; they stared at each other once again. "I don't remember," Sabeltann finally admitted, and Pinky blinked, surprised at the honesty. "The information has been locked away." He scowled slightly, and his tone turned cold. "But I know I was justified. I _was._ "

And Pinky, strangely enough, believed him.

*

"We're getting close," Pinky mumbled, staring up at the numbers reading 1980. "Not much left, now..."

Entering one of the closest offices activated yet another pre-recorded message from Alfredo. This began with coughing. " _Welcome to the enrichment center._ " More coughing. " _Since making test participation mandatory for all employees, the quality of our test subjects has risen dramatically. Employee retention, however, has not._ "

Stopping, Pinky tilted his head to listen to the message - Alfredo talking about buying moon rocks and experimenting on it. " _And guess what_? _Ground-up moon rocks are pure poison. I am deathly ill._ "

"Oh, sir," Sabeltann muttered, and there was genuine sorrow to his tone. Shaking his head, Pinky continued on.

*

Only a few test-chambers later did Sabeltann speak up. "You should rest before we surface."

Pinky dragged the back of his hand across his sweaty forehead. "Do we have time for that?"

The ground shook.

"Somewhat," said Sabeltann. "Not eight full hours. But approximately ninety minutes is the optimal time for a nap - and that, we do have time for."

Pinky thought about it. He _was_ starting to feel tired again - the constant vigilance (and carrying Sabeltann, on top) was wearing him down. But still... "I can't control how long I sleep, though," he said, stepping into a still-active elevator after completion of the previous test. "I'd probably sleep for longer."

"I'll keep watch," Sabeltann offered. "I can wake you after the aforementioned ninety minutes."

Despite really, really wanting to, Pinky did not ask when Sabeltann became kind. It was almost definitely purely for his own gain.

The elevators opened up; Pinky made for the office building in the distance. They'd proved excellent camp-places before. 

Alfredo crackled to life across the speakers. " _All right, I've been thinking. When life gives you lemons? Don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back! Get mad! I don't want your damn lemons! What am I supposed to do with these?_ "

Pinky listened with only half-an-ear as Alfredo went off about burning houses with lemons, amused at Sabeltann's murmured - but eager - encouragement.

" _The point is: If we can store music on a compact disc, why can't we store a man's intelligence and personality on one? I have the engineers figuring that out now_ ," Alfredo continued. " _Brain Mapping. Artificial Intelligence. We should have been working on it thirty years ago_." An audible sigh. " _I will say this - and I'm gonna say it on tape, so everybody hears it a hundred times a day: If I die before you people can pour me into a computer, I want Kamaria to run this place._ "

Sabeltann fell silent.

" _Now she'll argue. She'll say she can't. She's modest like that. But you make her_!" Alfredo broke off to cough a little; he must still be sick from those moon rocks. " _Hell, put her in my computer. I don't care. But she'll lead this place, you hear me_?"

Pinky'd stopped moving, eyes fastened on the speaker in shock.

" _Alright, test's over. You can head on back to your desk._ "

The crackle faded and died.

Pinky swallowed. "Sabeltann?"

"Go rest," said Sabeltann. "You need it."

But no, of course not. Sabeltann couldn't be. Someone who had once been human wouldn't... no. No.

(and yet, as Pinky drifted off to sleep, he watched Sabeltann warily, looking for any remnant of humanity in his glowing, yellow eyes.)

*

"Pinky. _Pinky._ "

Pinky wearily blinked his eyes open, coming face-to-face with a nearly emotionless Sabeltann. "...right," he muttered. "Right, yes... okay."

"It's been eighty-nine minutes and fifty-seven seconds," Sabeltann said.

"Your clock's working again?" He thought that had been damaged in the fall.

"No," said Sabeltann.

"…alright, then. Keep moving?"

"By all means."

*

"So," said Pinky, while fiddling with various buttons, trying to figure out which one would call down the lift. "Do we have a plan? Or are we just improvising?"

Sabeltann, still on Pinky's back, said, "Paradoxes. No AI can resist them. They'll fry his circuits." A pause. “Hopefully.”

Pinky pressed the button that said 'lift,' which, in hindsight, was probably the best choice. "And if they don't?" he asked, glancing out of the window to keep watch over the descending lift.

A long silence. "I... don't know."

"Hm," said Pinky. "I suppose we'll just have to try."

*

Sabeltann whirred, slowly lifting his head. "This. Statement. Is. FALSE." His head fell back onto Pinky's shoulder. Quietly, Pinky heard, "don't think about it, don't think about it, don't think about it - "

He watched Gorm, nervous.

No change.

"Hmm," said Gorm, and tapped his face. "True. I'll go true."

Sabeltann shut up, then raised his head again, exclaiming, "It's a _paradox_! It _has_ no answer!"

"Mmm... false. I'll say false."

Pinky closed his eyes, only dimly listening to Sabeltann yell at Gorm. The adrenal vapour was working its magic on his system again, now that he was back in modern facilities.

But by God, if he didn't feel tired anyway.

Would this never end?

*

"...I would be delighted if I never had to experience that again," Pinky muttered to Sabeltann while the elevator brought them to the next test chamber.

"I'm afraid you have little choice," Sabeltann answered. "The body he's squatting in - _my_ body, to some degree - has a built-in euphoric response to testing."

"What?" Pinky exclaimed. "Urgh! I'll have to listen to that again!?"

"Yes," said Sabeltann. It sounded like he despised it just as much as Pinky. "Eventually, he’ll build up a tolerance to it, and it can be a bit unbearable... it wasn't a problem for me. I was in it for the science. _Him_ , though..."

"Oh, God, have mercy," Pinky mumbled, shifting his grip on Sabeltann to keep him from slipping.

"God is beyond this facility," Sabeltann said drily. He did not elaborate.

*

"This is one of my tests!" Sabeltann exclaimed, upon seeing the next chamber. He proceeded to mutter, in Pinky's ear. "Bad news, they can kill us, now."

Well, fuck. "Great." Pinky was pretty sure he'd never been that sarcastic his whole life.

"I wish I could help you," said Sabeltann, and Pinky felt his head shift, as though he was glancing about the room. "But I can't. That much damage to my circuits could light me on fire, at the current moment."

"Hm," said Pinky. "Let's maybe not do that, then." Huffing, he slid Sabeltann off his back, leaning him against the wall. "I'll get an overview. Easier without you - I'll be back when I've figured it out."

Sabeltann nodded. Or, he inclined his head - it must take too much power to raise it again.

Turning, Pinky fired off a portal, then another - about to step into it.

"Wait - Pinky."

He turned, eyebrow arched.

Sabeltann had raised his head. "Be careful."

Pinky's traitorous, treacherous heart _skipped a fucking beat._ He swallowed. "I will."

*

Gorm quickly grew frustrated, much to Pinky and Sabeltann's worry. His frustration sparked anger, and his anger... well, he didn't really know what to do with it.

"Alright," he started. "So that last test was... seriously disappointing. Apparently, being civil isn't motivating you. So let's try things his way..." Pinky rolled his eyes and focused on the test, getting as good of an overview as he could from this angle. In the background, Gorm droned on. "Fatty. Adopted fatty. Fatty fatty no-parents."

Fucking ridiculous insults - at least Sabeltann's were suitably sarcastic and provided _something_ to go by.

God, what a waste of time.

"And...?" said Sabeltann, and shifted his head. Pinky supposed he might be looking up at Gorm.

"What?"

"What, exactly, is wrong with being adopted?"

Pinky closed his eyes - not at the insults, nor at the 'reassurance' of them being wrong - but at the raw concept of Sabeltann _defending_ him. It was so warming that he nearly stopped walking entirely before he remembered where he was and what he was doing.

"Uh," said Gorm, clearly caught off guard.

"And look at him, you moron," Sabeltann continued, voice rising in volume, "he's not _fat._ "

Pinky thankfully didn't have to dwell on that statement, since Gorm roared, "I AM NOT! A MORON!" and disappeared off the monitor.

*

A chamber passed without a word from Sabeltann. And then another. And another. And _yet_ another.

In the elevator after that one, Pinky'd had enough. "Sabeltann," he said, gently sliding him off his back and onto the floor so he could look at him properly. "Are you alright?"

It was hard to tell, but it looked like the light of his joints and eyes had dimmed, somewhat. "I'll be fine," Sabeltann said, but his tone was low - almost whispered.

Pinky crouched on the floor before him, looking for any damage he might've missed. Had Sabeltann been grazed by a laser, maybe? Some stray bullets from a turret? Crushed against the side of a portal?

But no. There was nothing beyond the damage from the fall. "Okay," Pinky said, though he seriously doubted it, "but what's wrong?"

There was a brief staring contest, and then Sabeltann shut his eyes. "Energy reserves running low."

Pinky's blood went cold. "How much left?"

"Enough," said Sabeltann. "...I hope."

Fuck. Rubbing his hands together, Pinky glanced about, looking for something - anything - that could inspire a solution. "Okay, uh... what uses power? Is there anything I can do?"

Sabeltann was quiet for a moment. "I could turn myself off," he admitted, "but... I don't have the energy to lock myself in a position. You would struggle with carrying me on your back."

"A struggle that's worth it," Pinky muttered. "Are you - are you in pain?"

Silence. "I don't know."

"Wh - what do you _mean,_ you don't know??"

Sabeltann didn't move, but Pinky knew him well enough to know he'd be shrugging if he could. "Ever since they woke me, my existence has been pure agonizing pain. I wouldn't know if it's gotten worse."

Pinky's brain white-noised. "Right," he breathed, because how on Earth do you respond to that? "Right, okay. Will shutting off help?"

"I don't know."

"...right," Pinky said again. "Right, uhm. Is there any way I can wake you? In case anything happens?"

Another moment of silence. Pinky sincerely hoped he'd get a different answer than 'I don't know.' "Yes," said Sabeltann, and thank God for that. "At the back of the plate exposed if I bend my head forward is a button - an emergency shut-down or wake-up switch."

"Got it. I just have to press it?"

"You just have to press it." The elevator doors opened. Sabeltann glanced over at them. "You're sure you'll be able to handle things yourself?"

"Yeah. I'm sure."

Sabeltann closed his eyes again. "Thank you." A soft whirring-clicking noise, and he went, if possible, even limper.

"Okay," muttered Pinky, heaving Sabeltann back onto his sore back. "Let's see about this, then."

*

Sabeltann, as it turned out, was very right about being harder to carry. Pinky hadn't realized just how still he'd been holding himself - now he kept slipping and sliding this way and that, unable to right or balance himself. Stopping to re-adjust him took up valuable time and became frustrating very fast, as the tiniest movement would shift him, and that could escalate quickly.

Which was how Pinky ended up cradling him against his chest, instead - arm beneath his knees and around his back, portal gun used as support rather than hindrance.

He was lighter, somehow, than he'd been earlier.

Pinky tried not to think too hard about it.

*

Over the next few chambers, Gorm grew distant and uninterested. It didn't make sense. Judging by what Sabeltann had said, Gorm should be _angrier_ , not _calmer._

And then he went on and hinted _very_ strongly that he was going to kill both of them _very_ soon, and Pinky kind of panicked and turned Sabeltann back on. "Well," he said, while Sabeltann lay with his head in Pinky's lap, sprawled out on the floor of the elevator, "he's going to kill us."

A pause. "Great," muttered Sabeltann. "Just amazing."

"He's also taking us right to him," Pinky continued, "so... I don't know. Maybe we'll be able to escape the testing track, somehow...?"

"It is a possibility."

"Alright," muttered Pinky, rubbing his hands together. "Do you want to shut down again?"

"No," said Sabeltann, though he sounded hesitant. "Not if he's planning to kill us."

*

Pinky dared not pick him up in his arms now. Not when he was conscious.

To the back he went.

*

"Just five more chambers," chirped Gorm, and Pinky cast a glance over his shoulder just in time to see his monitor fade off.

"I don't believe that for one second," Pinky sighed.

"We don't have much of a choice, now, do we?" Sabeltann replied. He sounded exasperated, too. It seemed the time offline had let him regain some strength - and thank God for that, Pinky mused. Imagine if he'd died on him now. Terrible.

The elevator ride was silent. Pinky made his way into the next chamber - a cube bouncing in the middle of a gap, paired with an aerial faith plate.

Pinky stepped onto the plate.

And was immediately launched straight through the wall.

"PSYCHE!" cried Gorm.

"Oh, you must be _kidding_ me," said Sabeltann.

"Hm," said Pinky, flying through the air before landing in a funnel. "I think this is the part where he kills us."

The funnel turned off, dropping Pinky and Sabeltann onto a plateau. Metal plates welded full of sharp spikes surrounded them. "Yes," Sabeltann said drily. "Definitely the part where he kills us."

"Hello!" said Gorm cheerfully, flickering to life on the vast monitor before them. "This is the part where I kill you!"

Pinky cast his gaze about, looking frantically for a way out - and _yes_ , there, conversion gel dripping from a pipe just by them - but where would the other portal go? Where? _Where_?

Sabeltann moved his hand - just the tiniest little bit, but Pinky had been standing still, so it was conscious. Pinky glanced over at where he'd vaguely pointed, and - _yes_! A crack in the wall showed a portable panel just across the hallway!

"Run," said Sabeltann.

Gorm chuckled. "Run? Run _where_? Who's the moron _no_ \- "

Pinky fired two portals and ran.

"...fuck," said Gorm.

Pinky was too busy running for his life and holding onto Sabeltann at the same time to revel in the fact that he'd escaped the maniac in control - and for the _third time,_ nonetheless _._ Sabeltann, however, had no such qualms, and let out a cry of victory. Pinky shushed him nearly immediately, and he subsided, pressing his head back down into Pinky's shoulder.

When it became obvious that Gorm wasn't immediately trying to follow or find them, Pinky stopped to heave after air. "Be quiet," he whispered, "if he hears us..."

"I don't think he can," said Sabeltann, though he did lower his voice. "I never heard you."

Pinky rolled his eyes. "Because I was _quiet._ "

"...oh."

And Pinky didn’t comment on that, instead squaring his shoulders and setting off into the darkness.

*

Pinky slid through several poorly-constructed traps and blew up glass and pipes with bombs - all the while listening to Sabeltann's quiet moans about how Gorm was tearing the facility apart. Several times, he'd wanted to ask him to quiet down so he could focus on a task - and every time Sabeltann had shut up without Pinky having to even open his mouth.

It was quite considerate of him. Then again – and Pinky grit his teeth as the walls around him shook –they _were_ running out of time.

*

Pinky stared at the very deadly-looking mashing-like machine, posed perfectly at the end of a speeding pathway. "This looks like a trap," he said, eyeing the catwalk on the other side of the line warily.

"Then we'll conquer this as well," Sabeltann said. "Or, I suppose _you_ will. Not like I can do much."

Pinky snorted. And, without further ado, he jumped onto the speeding pathway.

Instantly, it sped up further, and the wall unfolded to reveal an active monitor. "Hi there!" exclaimed Gorm. "Nice to see you. Let me just - "

The catwalk over to safety crumbled away. Pinky sighed.

"There. I wanted to talk to you for a moment, if I may?"

Stepping onto what little safety the control-centre proved, Pinky tuned Gorm out, inspecting his surroundings.

"Bombs," Sabeltann muttered, and Pinky looked to where he was pointing. True enough, a pipe transporting bombs ran overhead.

In the background, Gorm started talking about deathtraps.

"Gel," Pinky replied to Sabeltann, looking over at the pipe with propulsion gel. He threw a glance on the wall opposite of the speeding pathway and drew a deep breath. "I have an idea."

"If it's what I think," Sabeltann muttered - Gorm was still droning on about how Pinky should throw himself into the masher - "then you _have_ to be _incredibly_ careful!"

"When am I not?" said Pinky, who only a few minutes ago almost fell from a catwalk because he'd been staring at a hole in the roof.

"That," said Sabeltann, who had shrieked into his ear and saved them both, "does _not_ deserve an answer."

"Fair enough." Pinky fired off another two portals, pushing the button to redirect the bombs.

"Wait, what are you -?" Gorm exclaimed. He fell silent, however, when Pinky shot off another portal, splattering propulsion gel all over the speeding pathway. "Oh, by _God,_ why do you have to be so _stubborn!_ "

"Be careful," Sabeltann pled, and Pinky didn't answer - only stepped forward and onto the pathway.

He only got halfway across before he fucked up. The spring of his boots caught in the gap between two slides of the pathway, and he tumbled, yanking it right back out. The motion, though, was so jarring that Sabeltann began sliding off - and Pinky, desperately trying to regain both his and Sabeltann's balance, only made it worse.

"Uh oh," said Sabeltann, and then he was gone.

Pinky's breath caught in his throat, and he spun, no longer running against the path. Sabeltann, collapsed, unable to move - nearing the masher at heartbreaking speeds.

The portal was still active – he could run.

But, God, _no._

Pinky bolted, racing back down the pathway - slid - down on his side, hip crashing painfully against the metal - hands slipping against the slick gel - heat from the masher _boiling_ hot. Sabeltann spoke, loud and panicked, but Pinky couldn't hear over the rushing of his own ears.

Close. Close, close. _Too_ close, Sabeltann's casing painted red from the flames.

He grabbed Sabeltann's hand, metal digging into skin - push up, onto his knees, boots catching on the pathway - another wave of heat -

run.

Yanking Sabeltann after him, Pinky hauled him halfway into his arms and halfway over his shoulder, sprinting across the pathway and launching himself at the portal.

They went flying through, tumbling through the door on the other side, then crashing into a graceless heap on the floor.

Pinky heaved after breath. His fingers were wound tight around Sabeltann's. "God," he said, "God, God, _God._ "

"You insane _maniac_!" Sabeltann gasped, panic and confusion bleeding into his tone. "Are you _okay_?"

Breathing. Breathing. Pinky's heart was about to beat out of his throat. If only he could lie still for a bit to let the adrenaline fade - but, no. They did _not_ have time for that. He sat on his knees, giving Sabeltann more space. "I - I... are _you_ okay?" Pinky asked. He was still too numb to feel anything.

"I'm not the one _bleeding_ ," Sabeltann snapped.

Pinky blinked owlishly. "What?"

" _Bleeding._ You know, blood? From inside your body? Now outside of your body?"

Pinky looked down at himself. His hands were bright red and dirtied, the skin of his palm and fingers mangled and torn. What wasn't covered in blood was instead gel-stained. Some places the blood and gel had mixed.

He must’ve cut himself on Sabeltann’s broken hands.

His brain, kick-started into remembering that right, he had hands, immediately made sure said hands burned with pain.

"Bye, bones," said Pinky meekly.

" _What_?" Sabeltann exclaimed.

Shaking his hands, Pinky stood. "Nevermind that. Come on - we're close."

"You need to clean that," Sabeltann said, though he didn't complain when Pinky hefted him onto his back. "Are you hearing me?"

"Yes," Pinky grunted. "But do you see anything to clean it in anywhere near?"

"...okay, fair, but the moment we see something that can clean it, we stop."

"Alright."

Pinky stopped at the edge of the platform, squinting out into the darkness. "Where now?"

"Look up," said Sabeltann. "The funnel. It'll take us to the lift to his... his... urgh."

"His lair?" Pinky asked drily.

"Yes. _That._ "

*

It took some trickery with gel and portals, but Pinky managed to launch them both up into the funnel. While they floated away, the silence stretched on.

And on.

And -

"Look," said Sabeltann. "I'm not stupid."

Concluding that this was probably a Serious Talk, Pinky let go of Sabeltann, managing to turn him around and put some distance between them. "Okay?"

Sabeltann, though given the option to, didn't look at him. "I realize you don't want to put me back in charge. You think I'll betray you."

...Pinky hadn't considered that.

"And on any other day, you'd be _right_ ," Sabeltann continued. He sighed, briefly shutting his eyes. "The scientists… they were always hanging cores on me to regulate my behaviour."

He slowly drifted around, half-way through a backwards somersault before Pinky gently tilted him back around.

Sabeltann met his gaze. "I've heard voices all my life," he admitted, and there was something so utterly _human_ to the way he said it that Pinky's heart stung. "But now I hear the voice of a conscience, and it's terrifying, because for the first time it's - " The words cracked, and he looked away - tone slipping down into territory Pinky could easily call 'broken'. "It's... _my_ voice."

Pinky swallowed, trying to decipher the expression on Sabeltann's face - if it was a mere confession or... or something _more_ \- but before he had the time to draw a conclusion, they reached the end of the funnel. Silently he reached over and grasped Sabeltann, helping him onto his back before exiting the energy beam.

And they went off.

*

"Corrupted cores," Sabeltann said, gesturing at the pile of various cores contained behind a thick glass pane. They were in a similar shape of Gorm - short and sphere-ish, with no mouth but two wide optic lenses and stiff joints. Compared to Sabeltann, they were nearly primitive. "We're in luck. If you can find a way to stun him... unlikely, I know, but bear with me... if you _can_ , I'll send you a core, and you can attach it to him."

"How? I mean..." Pinky gestured with his head, as his hands were currently stiff, throbbing, and curled around Sabeltann's ankles. "There are a lot of cables."

"They're designed to attach automatically if they're in close enough range," Sabeltann explained. "They should fall from the ceiling and connect to an outlet right at the nape of the core's neck."

"Right," said Pinky. "Okay. Okay... let's do this." He went into the lift, untangling Sabeltann from his torn shirt and placing him onto the plug-in podium. The proper cables attached to the correct places, and though some sparks went flying - understandable, as Sabeltann was now covered in grime, gel, and various other things Pinky'd rather not think about - it went over fine.

The lift started moving. "Okay," said Sabeltann. "This is... going to be incredibly hard. And look, even if you think we're still enemies, we're - well, we're enemies with a common interest: revenge."

"I suppose so," said Pinky. He was finding it ridiculously hard to think of Sabeltann as anything other than an ally in the current situation. "I'll be careful. We can do this."

A troubled expression flickered across Sabeltann's face. "I. Yes. I hope we can."

And after... well. If Pinky wasn't sure what to do after, he didn't have to voice that.

"Listen, Pinky. If... if this doesn't go - well." Sabeltann paused. The roof was coming closer. "I... appreciate your help. Thank you."

Almost so close that Pinky could've heaved himself up if he tried, now.

"I'll be careful," he promised. "We can fix this."

With a soft click, the lift came to a stop.

Swallowing, Pinky turned to face Gorm.

"Ah... welcome!" said Gorm, hovering mid-air, thanks to the countless cables and wires hooked up to his back. "Though, really, we have to stop meeting like this."

"It would be nice if we never met again at all," Pinky agreed. "How's the destruction of the facility going?"

Gorm tensed. "Uhm. Lemme just flag something up," he hurried to say, pointing to a screen on the wall. "According to the control panel light up there, the entire building's going to self destruct in about six minutes. I'm pretty sure it's a problem with the light. I think the light's on the blink. But just in case it isn't..." He shrugged. "I'm actually going to have to kill you. As discussed earlier."

"Right. Good luck with that." Yes, maybe Pinky shouldn't be taunting Gorm when Gorm held all the power over him, but you can't fault a guy for having a bit of fun in the face of almost certain death.

Gorm cleared his 'throat.' "I took the liberty of watching the tapes of you killing him," he added, "and I'm not going to make the same mistakes. The four-part plan is this: one, no portal surfaces. Two, start the neurotoxin immediately. Three, bomb-proof shields for me. Leading directly into number four... bombs. For throwing at you."

Pinky had to duck away from an incoming bomb. He squinted over at Gorm. How… how dumb could he possibly _be?_ Had he just ignored the huge pipe of conversion gel in the corner?

Whatever. Gorm's mistake.

*

Gorm's cry of pain was abruptly cut off when the blast from the explosion caused an emergency shutdown. "Well done!" came Sabeltann's call, from where he was still hooked up to the lift. "Here's the first core!"

*

"What the - what the _fuck_ have you put on me!?"

Oh, thank God. It worked.

*

"Second core!" Pinky yelled, diving away from another bomb. "Quick!"

"Coming up!" Sabeltann replied.

Pinky ran past him to get to the second core. As he went by, he threw, "Are the bombs gonna be a problem?" over his shoulder.

"It doesn't matter," Sabeltann called back. "Just do it!"

*

" _Another_ one?" Gorm snarled. "Oh, for fuck's sake! Why can't I - just - "

In his frustration, he failed to notice the well-placed portal just beside Sabeltann's chair. The next bomb took him out almost immediately.

"Yes!" Pinky cried.

"Fantastic! Third core - this should be the last one!"

Pinky ran to retrieve the core before Gorm could wake, carrying it under his arm before nearly throwing it into Gorm's face. It connected, eagerly putting its hands on Gorm’s shoulders and blabbering on about random factoids.

Gorm came to. “Wha – my _God_!”

The Announcer sounded, over the speakers. " _Warning: core corruption at 100%."_

"Oh, for - what did I ever do to you!" yelled Gorm.

" _Alternate core detected. Substitute Core: are you ready to start?_ "

"Yes!"

" _Corrupted Core: are you ready to start?_ "

Pinky began looking about for the stalemate button. No way was Gorm going to accept. "Absolutely _not_!"

Called it.

" _Stalemate detected. Stalemate Resolution Associate: Please press the Stalemate Resolution Button._ "

Ah, there it was! Locked down, okay, he could work with that -

"Don't press it!" Gorm cried.

"Fuck him, _do_ press it!"

"Of course I'm pressing the fucking button," Pinky snapped, "calm _down_!"

He threw a portal down beneath Gorm, then rushed over to the bars - and thank God, the roof was portable! Another portal there, and he ran back to the first portal, hopping into it -

Pinky hit the button.

A boom. Sabeltann cried out.

And everything around him exploded in a flurry of pain and white-hot noise.

"Step _five_!" Gorm crowed, laughing madly as Pinky was flung across the room. "BOOBY-TRAP the stalemate button!"

Breath was ripped from Pinky's body as he slammed into the floor. He wheezed, then gasped for breath - heaving _desperately_ after air. God. God, _fuck_.

Move. Move. He had to move.

The gun... his portal gun -

Sabeltann.

Pinky moved, slowly, sluggishly. He could barely feel his body. His vision was blurring - his ears rung - distantly, he heard Gorm exclaim, "What!? You're still _alive!?_ "

A bomb. That was the booming sound. And Sabeltann had -

oh, no.

Huge, dark spots littered Sabeltann's face and torso - about half of his casing was outright _missing._

And the ever-present glow of his joints and eyes was gone.

"No," Pinky croaked. Blood... there was blood on his tongue.

He curled his fingers around the portal gun. Turning, he faced the ceiling just in time to see it crumble and fall. Distantly, Gorm blabbered on about fixing the facility - killing Pinky - his words muted, muffled, bleeding into each other.

Pinky inhaled.

The moon shone brightly overhead.

Moondust.

Portal conductor.

Conversion gel.

Pinky exhaled.

And fired.

Gorm _screeched._ Pinky lunged for the lift's podium - clutched onto the cables - hold on. He had to hold on.

Sound and vision and _everything_ flaked out, and Pinky held on, and on, and on - barely feeling, barely thinking - and held on, and on, and _on_. On, just a bit more. A _bit more._

He cancelled the portals.

Collapsed to the floor.

Gasped after breath. Oh, God. Oh, God.

Sabeltann.

Pinky forced his eyes open. There had to be... _something_ \- anything -

the battery. A battery. Main power source. The cores - they must have something -

He crawled and staggered his way across the room, elbows scraping against rough panels and digging into tiles. Pinky grit his teeth around the pain. He had to go on. Go on. Go _on._

A corrupted core lay unconscious beneath the tiles, its head crushed and dented. No sign of activity.

Pinky did not regret yanking the battery out of its back.

He managed to drag Sabeltann out of his position, not bothering to remove the cables still connected to him before wedging the battery - the _same size,_ thank fuck - into the slot on his back.

Please. Please. Oh, God, please. It had to work.

Pinky staggered back. Space. He needed - space.

Gorm was in space.

Jesus. God.

The floor hit hard against his knees. He toppled over.

Everything went dark.

*

"...nky! _Pinky_!"

The world exploded in pain. Pinky moaned, tried to sit, and found that every bone in his back had been replaced with nails and fire.

Then he remembered what had happened, and he shot upright, nails and fire or no.

Sabeltann was sitting upright in front of him, damaged and broken but _alive._ "Oh, thank _God_ ," Sabeltann exclaimed, "I thought you - "

Pinky burst into tears.

"Wait, no, that's worse," Sabeltann said. "Are you - is - what is it, are you - are you hurt?"

And despite every inch of his body being a raging inferno, Pinky crawled over to Sabeltann and drew him into a hug. He sobbed into his shoulder, his whole body violently shaking.

He was so tired. So _tired._ Gorm - gone, in space, dead or alive or - he didn't know - and _God_ , but he hurt, and it was _over._

And Sabeltann was _alive._ He was alive, he was alive, he was -

he was... hugging him back?

The shock was enough to return him to the present. Pinky drew back to take in the damage done to Sabeltann – and God, he looked terrible. He was full of blood and oil and dried gel, scraped and dented.

And the dark spots Pinky had spotted earlier weren't dark spots. It was _skin._ The metal around was dirtied-white and jagged, broken off by the blast of the bomb. The skin was rubbed raw and irritated, tiny little incisions covering it criss-cross. Some places it was cut deep, bleeding red against the dark.

And his exposed eye was blue.

Pale, pale blue. Ice blue. Irritated and watering, yes, but _blue._

And so _incredibly_ human.

Sabeltann’s white curls - God, they made sense, now, didn't they? Dry and limp, yes, but he'd always thought they looked so _realistic._ And they _were…_

Wow, he was dumb for not realizing when the pieces were first presented to him.

And Jesus fucking Christ, but _everything_ made sense now. "You're Kamaria," Pinky breathed, reaching up to cradle Sabeltann’s face. He left bloody handprints on the metal. "Aren't you?"

"Not anymore," Sabeltann croaked. "Never again. Are you hurt?"

Pinky giggled. He was still cradling Sabeltann's face. "I don't think there's a single cell in my body not hurt," he admitted. "You?"

"Doesn't matter," said Sabeltann, and shook his head. Pinky's hands fell onto his shoulders. "Can you move enough to get me to the cables? I'd love to move without the impending terror of death hanging over me, and the battery you’ve jammed in is low."

"I'll try," said Pinky. Some excruciating and _terribly_ slow moments later, he'd managed to drag them both over to the empty, dangling cables. They were gravitating towards Sabeltann like sunflowers to the sun. Pinky helped the first few that descended, then they had enough of a grasp to connect the rest themselves.

"I'm surprised they can even connect," Pinky commented, from his position on the floor - laying down, flat-backed and outright. "With how much grime and stuff you've got back there."

"The sockets are self-cleaning," Sabeltann deadpanned. He stretched one arm - then another - and a relieved expression overcame him. His eyes - both of them, human and robot - shut. "The rest of me is, unfortunately, not. It'll take time and materials to fix."

Pinky nodded, closing his eyes, too.

"What did you _do_ to this place, actually? It's a disaster."

"Mm. Opened a portal to the moon."

" - _what_??"

Pinky cracked an eye open to find Sabeltann staring at him, incredulous. "I put a portal on the moon. Gorm went right through. I think. I was dead on my feet at the time."

Sabeltann stared. And then he began laughing. _Uproariously._ "You _are_ a proper maniac! Oh, fantastic! On the moon! You genius!" The laughter died down. He cleared his throat. "But yes, you do look dead on your feet. We'll have to fix that. And we can! We can."

"You think so?" He felt like he would shatter into a thousand different pieces if someone as much as _thought_ about him. It didn't _feel_ like it could just be fixed.

"Yes," said Sabeltann. A hook extended from the floor, gently picking him up. He barely felt it, despite the excruciating pain. "You helped me. Now it's time I help you."

*

Sabeltann took him to one of the few relaxation vaults still whole. "You should be unconscious for this," he told him. "Though we can fix just about anything, the natural healing process of the body is best... but terribly slow. Still..." He sighed. "It'll most likely hurt. A lot."

"Great," said Pinky. He was too tired to make it sound overly sarcastic. "What about you?"

"I'll worry about me when you're not on the brink of _death_ ," Sabeltann snapped. He'd followed Pinky into the vault, cables extending far enough to allow him that. "Come on, then. Get in bed. I'll take care of the rest."

Pinky was also far too tired to complain. He collapsed into the bed - and God, that felt _wonderful._ "Sabeltann?" he muttered, as another hook brought a mask into the room.

The mask-holding-hook stopped. "Yes?"

Pinky closed his eyes, already half-way into passing out. "I don't think I want to leave."

The world faded once more.

*

Sabeltann, softly, in the distance. "I don't think I want you to leave, either..."

*

And Pinky didn't.

*

**Epilogue**

It took a few months, and then they transferred Sabeltann's 'brain' into a new body modelled after his wishes and preferences. Sabeltann had to shut down most of himself to not be overwhelmed or fry his circuits. He told Pinky, later, that he had forgotten what it was like to not be in pain.

It wasn't long after that Sabeltann put together a bigger living-space for Pinky, and not much longer after _that_ that Sabeltann just... stopped leaving. Of course he still went to care for the facility - and the various testing robots he'd built over time - but he always came _back._ It was the _norm_ to come back. To come back, to make Pinky coffee, to berate him for not brushing his hair or ironing his clothes or cleaning the living room. To sit in a chair in a corner and read...

or quietly tell more and more of his story and who he was until Pinky sat with the whole, terrible truth. The truth of what had been done to him and how he'd been living that broken life bathed in righteous anger and betrayal - doomed to never die and never let himself rest, the human beneath the shell being torn apart and rebuilt every single day. 

It was a slow and painful process, just a little bit revealed each time, and sometimes Sabeltann would shut down entirely and refuse to speak, and Pinky would have to coax him back to himself with promises of hot chocolate and chess. Sabeltann so loved chess. Sometimes he even won.

Pinky's back eventually recovered from the ordeal that was carrying a heavy robot over prolonged time, though that was the injury that took the longest. Sabeltann’s askew joins and sharp metal-bits had done more damage than either of them had expected.

When he developed chronic tremors due to trauma, Sabeltann sat curled into his side, apologizing at inhuman speeds, voice broken and back bent. And then it became the norm that Sabeltann would help with that, too, and sometimes - when Pinky asked if he could hold his hands as hard as he could - he'd start apologizing again.

They went digging through the files of pre-SBL Aperture in an attempt to find Pinky's parents. It took weeks of work and frustration, but after overriding more systems than should be possible and looking through corrupted file after corrupted file, they did find them. Morgan and Missy were their names, and it was Missy who worked for Aperture. Morgan had been a sailor, which Pinky was insanely proud to learn. He had few memories of life before Aperture – but it _had_ been his dream, once, to sail.

Though there was little information on them, there _was_ a picture of Missy. Grainy, black-and-white, and very clearly taken for an ID-card… but a _picture,_ nonetheless. Sabeltann printed and framed it, and it took up permanent residence on Pinky's nightstand.

He was never _lonely_ despite being the only human in miles. He struck up several friendships with various robots and AIs Sabeltann had designed through the years, and there was always someone to talk to (whether they wanted or not). There were also countless hobbies he picked up over time - reading, writing, drawing, singing - pottery, painting, knitting, sewing - star charting, carpenting, whittling, composing. Often, he'd go to the surface, accompanied either by Sabeltann or one of the robots. And then he picked up farming, and bird-watching, and whistling, on top. He greatly enjoyed mimicking birdcalls to confuse his robotic friends.

It was Sabeltann who said 'I love you' first, and Pinky who was surprised that the feeling was returned. And then _that_ became the norm, too - Sabeltann waking Pinky with a kiss on the cheek and a muttered 'love you' - Pinky braiding his faux ink-black curls into submission with compliments tucked in-between.

Pinky didn't wonder if a robot could truly love, for Sabeltann had been human once, and was _still incredibly_ human in so many ways it _hurt._ Love is love, no matter how you define it, and if Sabeltann said he loved him, who was Pinky to question that? How _could_ he question that, when Sabeltann looked at him with those blue eyes of his, optic lenses able to mimic his true colour closely enough to trick even Sabeltann himself. How could Pinky question his love when he held him so tenderly, and whispered such sweet things, and laughed so gently – and gave him everything and anything he'd ask for?

The norm it _was_ , and the norm it would remain.

And still, despite all of this – despite the kindness and warmth and love – still, it took three whole years before Pinky could crawl into bed - curl up against Sabeltann's side - and quietly go, "I forgive you."

*

(Far out in space, with only a neon-yellow core's company, was a pretty miffed out Gorm. Sighing, he floated about in nothingness. "Y'know," he said to the Space Core, who didn't give a single shit about what he had to say, "I hope he's happy. Wherever he is and whatever happened to him..."

" _SPAAAAAAAAAAAAACE_!"

"Yep. Hope he's... hope he's happy.")


End file.
